Friday 29th of March 2024

OPEN LETTER TO THE UNITED NATIONS from Alfred de Zayas, 23 February 2019...

warmag

OPEN LETTER TO THE UNITED NATIONS SECRETARY GENERAL ANTONIO GUTERRES

AND TO THE HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS MICHELLE BACHELET

from Alfred de Zayas, 23 February 2019

Dear Michelle Bachelet,

Dear Antonio Guterres

As former UN Independent Expert on the Promotion of a Democratic and Equitable International Order (2012-2018) I would like to urge you to once again make your voices heard and make concrete proposals for mediation and peace in the context of the Venezuelan crisis.

The most noble task of the United Nations is to create the conditions conducive to local, regional and international peace, to work preventively and tirelessly to avoid armed conflicts, to mediate and negotiate to reach peaceful solutions, so that all human beings can live in human dignity and in the enjoyment of the human right to peace and all other civil, cultural, economic, political and social rights. I am particularly worried by the Orwellian corruption of language, the instrumentalization and weaponization of human rights and now even of humanitarian assistance.

I look back at my UN mission to Venezuela in November/December 2017 as a modest contribution to facilitate the cooperation between the United Nations and the Venezuelan government and to open the door to the visits of other rapporteurs. See my report to the UN Human Rights Council and the relevant recommendations.

I believe that it would be timely and necessary for both of you to issue a statement reaffirming General Assembly Resolutions 2625 and 3314 and the 23 Principles of International Order that I formulated in my 2018 report to the Human Rights Council. See para 14 of [the report].

It would be appropriate to recognize the fact that the government of Venezuela has put into effect some of the recommendations contained in my report — and in the six page confidential memo that I personally gave to Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza upon my departure.

Indeed, first the Venezuelan government released 80 detainees — including Roberto Picón and 23 others whose release I had specifically requested — that was on 23 December 2017, followed by other releases in the course of 2018. Alas, there has been practically no information about this in the mainstream media, although it is easily accessible in the internet. See also the comments of Venezuela on my report.

In particular paragraph 46(xvi):

As a result of this on 23 December 2017, 80 people arrested for acts of violence during the protests in the country were released; and on 1 June 2018, 39 more people were released.

And paragraph 46(xviii):

In this regard, the Venezuelan Government values the willingness and disposition of the Independent Expert, who was pleased to inform the competent authorities of the requests he received from some relatives of the persons deprived of their liberty. His recommendations were accepted.

Shortly after my visit Venezuelan authorities met with the UN agencies and made additional cooperation accords, thanks to the valuable efforts Peter Grohmann, the UNDP representative in Caracas.

Now the government of Venezuela has formally asked the United Nations for humanitarian assistance in connection with the current crisis. We must not let them down.

I think that the US should turn over all the humanitarian assistance and medical supplies it has flown into Colombia and have them distributed as soon as possible with the help of the United Nations and other neutral organizations, including the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Another item of information that is sorely missing from the mainstream media is the delivery last week of 933 tons of food and medicines at port La Guaira — coming from China, Cuba, India, Turkey etc.

Moreover an additional 300 tons of medicines and medical supplies provided by Russia arrived by air.

As I know from my conversations with Venezuelan ministers during my visit in 2017 and the recent conversations I have had with Venezuelan Ambassador to the UN in Geneva Jorge Valero – Venezuela has always welcomed and repeatedly asked for assistance from neutral and friendly governments so as to overcome the adverse human rights impacts of the financial blockade and the sanctions. Such help should be offered in good faith, without strings attached.

I believe that this is the moment for Michelle Bachelet to accept the invitation of the government of Venezuela, extended to her in December 2018, to visit Venezuela personally. Her presence in Venezuela should ban the growing danger of a military intervention by foreign entities. She should endorse the efforts at mediation launched by Mexico and Uruguay at the Montevideo mechanism.

There are ominous parallels with the run-up to the Iraq invasion in 2003 — an illegal war, as Kofi Annan said on repeated occasions.

It is obvious to any first year law student that the constant threats against Venezuela are contrary to article 2(4) of the UN Charter. What many do not realize is that the threats, the economic war, the financial blockade and the sanctions violate the principles contained in Article 3 of the OAS Charter

e. Every State has the right to choose, without external interference, its political, economic, and social system and to organize itself in the way best suited to it, and has the duty to abstain from intervening in the affairs of another State. Subject to the foregoing, the American States shall cooperate fully among themselves, independently of the nature of their political, economic, and social systems; f. The American States condemn war of aggression: victory does not give rights; g. An act of aggression against one American State is an act of aggression against all the other American States; h. Controversies of an international character arising between two or more American States shall be settled by peaceful procedures; I. Social justice and social security are bases of lasting peace…

Moreover, they violate numerous articles of Chapter 4 of the OAS Charter,

Article 17

Each State has the right to develop its cultural, political, and economic life freely and naturally. In this free development, the State shall respect the rights of the individual and the principles of universal morality.

Article 18

Respect for and the faithful observance of treaties constitute standards for the development of peaceful relations among States. International treaties and agreements should be public.

Article 19

No State or group of States has the right to intervene, directly or indirectly, for any reason whatever, in the internal or external affairs of any other State. The foregoing principle prohibits not only armed force but also any other form of interference or attempted threat against the personality of the State or against its political, economic, and cultural elements.

Article 20

No State may use or encourage the use of coercive measures of an economic or political character in order to force the sovereign will of another State and obtain from it advantages of any kind.

Dear Michelle Bachelet, dear Antonio Guterres: The world looks up to you in the hope that you can avert even greater suffering to the peoples of Venezuela. They need international solidarity as expressed in the report of Virginia Dandan, the then independent expert on human rights and international solidarity.

I remain respectfully yours

Professor Dr. Alfred de Zayas, Geneva School of Diplomacy

 

Source:

https://off-guardian.org/2019/02/24/venezuela-an-open-letter-to-the-un-s...

the "good" cop/bad cop routine...


Daniel McCarthy at The American Conservative has totally misunderstood the situation. He thinks Trump is a man of peace... Here is his idiotic conclusion:

Trump is a peace president on balance, but he also shows the limitations of having only a president who wants foreign policy restraint. To carry through on Trump’s promise of realignment in American grand strategy will require a class, or counter-elite, to help him or future presidents like him. There was a time between Eisenhower’s Farewell Address and the first Persian Gulf War when our country had a policy-making class that included realists and skeptics of overextension. They were particularly influential within the Republican Party, as it happens. Trump cannot conjure into existence a new generation of Republican realists, but his commonsense attitudes toward retrenchment have widened and redefined the national conversation. And he’s shown that the cult of respectability can be beaten by a leader who is willing to call the wares of our merchants of death exactly what they are—grotesque mistakes and the dreams of fools.

Trump has shown what even one man who dares speak impolitic truths can accomplish. Imagine what an entire class of such people could do.

Daniel McCarthy is the editor of Modern Age: A Conservative Review and editor-at-large of The American Conservative.



Read more:https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/donald-trump-peace-president/
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A Comment by balconesfault to this stupid rabble says:

...

But the entire GOP seems incapable of understanding that if you vastly increase our military spending … we will continue to stick our noses into places around the world with military interventions.

For all the rhetoric – I remember Donald J. Trump proudly announcing not one, but two, missile strikes on Syria that did little except drop about $100 million with each salvo.

Trump has cut our diplomatic budget, thumbed his nose at the world on issues like the Iran Nuclear Deal and the Paris Accords, upped the level of US support for the Saudis murderous campaign in Yemen, sent billions in weapons to Ukraine and the Middle East, pushed for increasing nuclear tensions, and saber rattled first over North Korea, and now over Venezuela.

These aren’t his advisors. These are what a guy who really doesn’t understand policy consistency does. As a result we have a world moving towards greater instability because the titular leader of the Free World sets policy by twitter impulse, shattering past alliances and the confidence of perhaps every government on the globe outside of Moscow that America will act in a rational way.

He’s not a Peace President … he’s a mind in pieces, and his embrace of chaos guarantees the erosion of peace with every day he’s in office.



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Gus:
Trump plays the "good" cop/bad cop routine… You know the one: "I don’t want to hurt you, I actually like you… PEACE  is my middle name, but if you don’t do as I say or tell me what I want to know, my friend here is A BIT MAD and he could get NUTTY and cut your fingers off in a fit… This would be REALLY sad, wouldn’t?

Off course the friend in the case of Trump is the Bolton/Pompeo vicious hydra-personage who looks like a mad irate guy with two strange heads…

This pressure technique has often been used in business as well and of course international relations for centuries, leading to wars, and it has been used by the Mafia, the Borgias and the Medicis. It's called negotiation.

Most previous Presidents used a different technique. They did not “try” to negotiate with such delicacy. They just undermined the position of the target through the media, got other thugs to do the pummelling and organise false flag events to be able to declare: “this guy is bad news and is dangerous to his own people… we have the duty to take him out… if he does not go out of his own 'free' will”.

Against Venezuela, Trump is using another excellent robbery technique which is to be “charitable” with strings attached. This is the conman robbing old ladies: "I give you my love and this fake watch free of charge but you give me all your money for my good libertarian charity [the multimationals] in return”.
It often works as well as the first and second techniques. A mix of all of them can really intimidate thugs or an old lady into becoming weakling sobbing sooks... But this is not guaranteed, like the old lady in Shawn the Sheep who always defends herself with her handbag...

the UK up to its arse in fakes?...

According to a pan-Arab Lebanese TV Channel (Al-Mayadeen), an Ethiopian plane has uploaded at Malta 15 chests of false money to be delivered to Venezuela.

The Venezuelan economy has collapsed. Elliot Abrams thinks this is due to the communist government being unfit managers while the Bolivarian government of Nicolas Maduro thinks it’s the result of a US sabotage.

Whilst sabotaging the Venezuelan economy, the United States has just delivered humanitarian aid for the victims of this sabotage to the border that Venezuela and Colombia share. Convinced that this stock includes subversive material, the Venezuelan government is refusing to deliver this aid (but it is accepting aid from other countries). Clearly this stock is barely significant, since the total US aid following the crisis represents only 6% of the daily aid distributed by the Venezuelan authorities.

During the war against Syria, both Saudi Arabia and Qatar printed false money to bring the Syrian economy into chaos. However at the time, both monarchies were competing with each other; they had not come to a market sharing agreement. Further, at the same time they were paying all their mercenaries in dollars. For the mercenaries to be on the spot men, they had to change their US dollar pay into Syrian pounds. Finally, Syria has printed new notes in Russia.

Translation 
Anoosha Boralessa

 

Read more:

https://www.voltairenet.org/article205337.html

they can claim the support of NATO ....

Jihadism and high treason

by Thierry Meyssan

European citizens who were encouraged to join the armed struggle in Syria alongside the pro-Western mercenaries can not be pursued for collaboration with the enemy as long as they can claim the support of NATO and its member-states. The European states can not bring them to trial without examining the prime responsibility of their own leaders for the war against Syria.


President Donald Trump has asked its Western allies to repatriate their jihadists imprisoned by the Syrian Democratic Forces and bring them to trial in their own countries. The United Kingdom has refused to do so, while France is dealing with their returns case by case.


By withdrawing from Syrian territory, the United States is admitting that the Syrian Democratic Forces are not a real army, but simply an auxiliary force under US supervision. They are also admitting that there is no Kurdish state in Syria, (« Rojava »), but that it was a fiction created for journalists. Consequently, « Kurdish Justice » was just another fable, and its capacity to apply its decisions will disappear within a few weeks. Islamist prisoners will either have to be freed or handed over to the Syrian Arab Republic, which will judge them according to statutes derived from French law. However, this state practises the death penalty, to which the European powers are now opposed.


In law, citizens of European countries who left to wage jihad in Syria have « collaborated with the enemy » and have also possibly committed the crime of « high treason » by working against European interests. But considering the actions of the Western states in this war, no Western jihadist will be found guilty of these charges in his own country.


The end of this war brings us back to reality. For eight years, the Europeans pretended to be surprised by their discovery of a popular « revolution » against an « Alawite dictatorship ». However, the actions taken by European states are today easy to expose and prove. They do not correspond at all to the narrative : the events that began in 2011 had been in preparation since 2003, and are still being organised today [1]. This war has lasted for so long that the lies on which it was based have been discovered.


If the European jihadists were to be judged for collaboration with the enemy, or even for high treason, the tribunal could not hold against them anything more than their atrocities against the Syrian people, and possibly the crimes committed in their own countries against their fellow citizens. Fanaticism is not a crime. The court would therefore conclude that only the Western leaders should be judged for high treason.


Before anything else, let us make clear that the objection according to which jihadist groups like al-Qaïda and Daesh can not be assimilated to recognised states does not hold water. Indeed, it is obvious that organisations which possess such military means could not exist without the support of states.


As an example, here is the way in which I would compose, in France, a plea for the defence of these fanatics:


Jihadists are not traitors, but soldiers


- 1. The defendants only acted on a request from the French government to go and fight the Syrian Arab Republic and its President, Bachar el-Assad. The French authorities continually qualified the Syrian Arab Republic as an « Alawite dictatorship » and called for the assassination of President Bachar el-Assad.


Mr. Laurent Fabius, the current president of the Constitutional Council, declared, when he was the Minister for Foreign Affairs, « After having heard all the shocking witness accounts by people here present (...) when you hear that – and I am aware of the force of what I am saying - Mr. Bachar el-Assad does not deserve to be on this Earth » . This is a particularly powerful position to be taken by a country which has banned the death penalty.

In order to avoid any confusion, and so that we may properly understand - the call for murder was not only addressed to Syrians, but to all French citizens. The City of Paris, on the initiative of its Mayor, Mme. Anne Hidalgo, organised a day of solidarity with the Syrian opposition at the Eiffel Tower. A recruiting office was installed at the foot of the Tower, and the Press made sure that everyone knew it.


Of course, thereafter, this support became less visible, and as from 2016, in other words some five years after the start of the events, the French authorities took measures to effectively prevent departures to Syria. But at no moment did they contradict their previous declarations, so that the defendants could believe that France intended to conform to international engagements, but had not changed its position concerning the legitimacy of its action.


- 2. All the defendants benefited from the indirect support of the French government during their jihad. All the jihadist groupuscules were financed and armed from overseas. The calls for tender by the Pentagon attest to the fact that it had set up permanent routes for importing arms to Syria [2]. Enquiries by the non-aligned Press have enabled us to establish, with proof, that several tens of thousands of tonnes of weaponry were illegally imported into Syria during the operation Timber Sycamore, first controlled by the CIA, then by the private investment fund KKR [3]. At least 17 states, including Germany and the United Kingdom, participated in this traffic. Incidentally, if it is not proved that France participated directly, it was also implicated in the allocation and distribution of these weapons, via LandCom (NATO Ground Forces Command) which it joined as part of the integrated command structure.


- 3. The defendants who were members of groups affiliated with Al-Qaïda benefited from the direct aid of the French government. This is revealed by the letter handed by ambassador Bachar Safari to the Security Council, on 14 July 2014. Dated from 17 January of the same year, and signed by the Commander-in-Chief of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), it exposes the allocation of the munitions offered by France to the jihadists, and specifies that a third is attributed by Paris to the Free Syrian Army, and that the remaining two thirds must be delivered to al-Qaïda (known in Syria as the « al-Nusra Front »). And did not Monsieur Fabius say that « al-Nusra is doing a good job » [4] ?


Since the defendants obeyed the instructions of the French government, and had indirectly received weapons, and directly received ammunition from the French state, they can not be accused of collaboration with the enemy or high treason.


It is the European leaders who are traitors to their countries


On the contrary, the French leaders who publicly confirmed their respect for Human Rights while secretly supporting the jihadists should be called to answer by the tribunals. They would also be required to explain how the Syrian Arab Republic, which they described as « the enemy » of France, had caused any damage to French interests.


At the beginning of the conflict, it was common practice to recall that in 1981, during the Lebanese civil war, Syria had ordered the assassination of French ambassador Louis Delamare. However, leaving aside the fact that thirty years separate this event from the beginning of the war against Syria, it had already been sanctioned by a response attack against the National Office of Military Conscription in Damascus, which cause 175 deaths – responsibility for the attack was claimed by the Director of the DGSE at that time, Admiral Pierre Lacoste.


It was also said that the Syrian Arab Republic had damaged French interests by assassinating the ex-Prime Minister of Lebanon, Rafic Hariri. France supported and continues to support a hybrid organisation known as the « Special Tribunal for Lebanon », tasked with judging Lebanese and Syrian Presidents Emile Lahoud and Bachar el-Assad. However, this organisation (which acts both as prosecutor and judiciary) has withdrawn these accusations after the witness testimony on which they were based had been proved to be false, and paid for by the prosecutors. No-one believes this lying accusation any more, apart from the employees of the organisation and their commanders, not even the children of the victims. Thus, Bahaa Hariri, the eldest son of Rafic Hariri, paid a friendly visit to President Bachar el-Assad last month.


In order to wage war on a friendly nation, Syria, the French leaders did not hesitate to support the jihadists. By doing so, they not only tarnished the international image of France, but also French interests – they put an end to fruitful anti-terrorist collaborations, and deliberately took sides with the terrorists. Some of their protégés came back to France and committed attacks on their own initiative.


These leaders should therefore be taken to court before the French Judicial system for complicity with terrorist organisations which have committed crimes in France, for collaboration with the enemy, and for high treason.


Thierry Meyssan

Translation 

Pete Kimberley

 

Read more:

https://www.voltairenet.org/article205314.html

 

 

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arming the "rebels" again...

UNITED NATIONS (Sputnik) - Venezuelan Ambassador to the UN Samuel Moncada told reporters the United States is arming Venezuelan deserters to form a so-called liberation army to invade the country.

"From the Colombian territory… they are arming so-called the Venezuelan liberation army to penetrate into Venezuelan territory with supposedly deserters," Moncada said on Thursday.

The envoy added that the United States is inflating figures that there are thousands of Venezuelan deserters because they are fabricating their own army similar to the US-backed Contra armies fighting against the Sandinista government in the Nicaragua Revolution in the 1980s.

READ MORE: UNSC ‘Very Unlikely' to Agree on US, Russia Resolutions on Venezuela — UK Envoy

These efforts are part of US plans for a clandestine operation against Venezuela, Moncada continued.

Moreover, the UN envoy said Venezuela views Trump's stance of "all options on the table" as a threat of using military force to overthrow President Nicolas Maduro's government.

 

Read more:

https://sputniknews.com/latam/201903011072854866-us-arming-liberation-ar...

 

 

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out...

The US State Department announced it is withdrawing all remaining diplomatic personnel from Venezuela, citing the “deteriorating situation” and referring to the presence of US staff at the embassy as a “constraint on US policy.”

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced the withdrawal on Monday. While most US staff stationed in Caracas had already been withdrawn in January following the US-backed opposition leader Juan Guaido’s attempt to declare himself president, a select few remained in defiance of President Nicolas Maduro’s order to American diplomats to leave the country.

 

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/news/453580-us-withdraw-diplomats-venezuela/

 

 

Read from top. Are the US removing their furniture to protect it from the something nasty they are preparing?

 

MEANWHILE:

 

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has said two would-be saboteurs have been caught “in flagrante delicto” trying to take down the communications system of the Guri hydroelectric dam. Investigation into who sent them is underway.

Authorities reportedly apprehended the two "material" perpetrators of the vandalism in the midst of interfering with the dam’s communications systems on Monday, averting a serious catastrophe, and have turned them over to the courts. They are now looking for the "intellectual authors" of the sabotage, and Maduro has blamed the US for the sustained technological attack on Venezuela's electrical system, which began last week.

 

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/news/453577-maduro-blackout-sabotage-caught/

 

 

against US imperialism...

In front of a crowd of supporters gathered in Caracas, Nicolas Maduro accused Juan Guaido of having conducted an assassination attempt against him. The Venezuelan president has claimed to have foiled "the plan of the diabolical puppet".


Two months to the day after Juan Guaido proclaimed himself interim president of Venezuela, with immediate support from Washington and the progressive support of other countries to maneuver a political transition in his country, President-elect Nicolas Maduro spoke on March 23 to a massive crowd of supporters, present in the streets of the Venezuelan capital on the occasion of the "march against imperialism", a pro-government event that brought together tens of thousands of people. The statesman accused Juan Guaido of being the source of an assassination attempt against him.

 

Read more:

https://francais.rt.com/international/60361-venezuela-devant-foule-immen...

 

Translation by Jules Letambour

 

 

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venezuelans against imperialism

March 23 2019